


All I Have to Do is Shoot

by somethingorodder



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingorodder/pseuds/somethingorodder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midorima reflects on his personal growth and time with Shūtoku, and how it has challenged him to change his perspective on basketball from his time with the Generation of Miracles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Have to Do is Shoot

Place the basketball on the bench. Sit to the right of it. Tape your fingers. First the pinky, then the ring finger, then the middle, then the index. Finally the thumb. Today’s lucky item is a ballpoint pen. Never used. Cleaned off six times with a cloth before leaving home.

Cancer was placed in third today. Be careful outdoors, and always keep a cool head. He read those words seven times. He also looked seven times before crossing the street; three to the left, four to the right. 

The trip there was uneventful and safe. Whatever disaster awaits him must be after the game. He has already decided that, and has prepared himself for every situation he could have conceived mentally in order to push any worries out of his mind.

He enjoys basketball because of its straightforward nature. The rules make sense to him. The objective is clear. The limitations of the players, their strengths, weaknesses, all variables that are definable, in some sense or another, that lead from a set of understandable concepts to an expected result.

More than emotion, determination or ability, the goal of basketball is to score more than your opponent. No matter how well you play-and, no matter who your opponent is… so long as you make each of your shots, and so long as you score the most points, you will win. That is why he has practiced three pointers.

No matter who his opponent was, no matter what sort of face they made or what they said to him, he understood them through their play, and was able to beat them through brute force. The technical skill of simply outshooting your opponent is all he needed to prove his own dominance. And no matter who it was he was up against, or who was on his own team, they had to respect him when he demonstrated his ability on the court.

That is why he worked by himself. He could carry any team by himself, and people were unpredictable, untrustworthy and incompetent. All they need to do is merely pass to him, and he would shoot. The position on the court did not matter. His opponent did not matter. 

One hundred shots, half court, last night during practice until 8:06 PM. All of them went in. 

“Hey, Shin-chan, you look so serious. Don’t you know how to loosen up before a game?”

“Takao. Your voice is annoying. You’re breaking my concentration.”

Takao just laughed it off, putting an arm around Midorima’s neck until he got visibly angry, at which point he bounced up off the bench and went to speak with someone else.

It was strange.

Despite believing he was able to understand himself the most, even he was taken by surprise by his own unpredictability.

He’s learned to like the unpredictability of people. It is not always cruel, or callous, or incompetent… this team, the team he has come so far with, the team he wants to see reach the very top-he feels a trust from his heart that he has never felt before. Even during his time at Teiko… no, especially during then, even he could feel the coldness of the team, and the ideologies of victory that surpassed even human respect.

They were calculating, like a machine, which he thought was a natural affinity for him. If anything, the lack of a human component is what he believed attracted him to the sport in the first place, alongside his natural aptitude. It made sense. His physical ability was most in tune with basketball. There was no room for human comfort or contact. There was no room for socialization or making friends.

He never felt like this would bother him during basketball.

Then again, he never felt like he would be drawn to someone like him.

He looked at Takao, who was always too quick and too observant to let something even as simple as a glance slip by, immediately returning to his antics of teasing and prodding him. 

“Shut up. I told you already, I’m trying to concentrate.”

A partner… his friends, despite the rough nature of their relationship, the bonds forged were undeniable, even to Midorima.

Never before had he felt security in people. Yet here, in this locker room, amongst these people… the strange warmth had become something of a comfort to him. 

Tape your fingers. First the pinky, then the ring, then the middle, the index, finally, the thumb. Outside to inside. Rotate the wrist. Clockwise. Flex your hand outwards seven times. Do everything in your power, and leave the rest to god.

“Hey, I heard that Aquarius was supposed to be favored in today’s fortunes. That’s bad, right? How’s Midorima supposed to win if he isn’t even favored by the stars?” 

“It’s just a fortune,” Midorima retorted. It was strange, for someone so invested, Midorima had never dismissed his fortune telling outright before to the team like this. Several members were visibly surprised.

“Regardless of whether or not we are favored to win, we will win.” He pushed up his glasses and did not declare it as a challenge, but a fact. “We’ve come too far to back down now.”

Even these fortunes are not absolute.


End file.
